Economic News Embargoes Should Apply to All

Several federal government agencies publish important weekly and monthly reports on economic growth, employment, retail sales, specific industry sectors, and (lest we forget) Uncle Sam’s awful and getting worse fiscal situation. This information moves markets and often immediately affects the political climate in Washington and elsewhere.

The agencies involved typically place embargoes on these reports. All along, and I must confess quite naively, I thought that having an “embargo” meant that absolutely no one outside of the agency preparing the report was allowed to see the related information until its official release. I have since learned otherwise.

I experienced a jarring incident showing just how seriously the government takes its embargoes on the non-privileged about a dozen years ago. While catching up on email during lunch, I innocently sent a message to the Bureau of Labor Statistics asking why a report embargoed until 8:30 a.m. had an email time stamp about 55 minutes earlier. In short order, I received a phone call from someone working in security at the Department of Labor (DOL). It turned out that there was no embargo violation; as I recall, the time stamp problem had to do with my email program’s non-recognition of the beginning of Daylight Saving Time the previous weekend. The point is that Uncle Sam clearly and quite justifiably doesn’t want anyone in a position to take advantage of key market-moving and politically sensitive information to see it before anyone else.

So perhaps I was among the few who were surprised to learn last month, as a result of an April 10 policy change at DOL, that many legacy news organizations have had the privilege of accessing otherwise embargoed information ahead of time for decades longer than they’ve needed it — or deserved it.

Before the Internet and fax machines, these pre-embargo “lock-ups” made sense. Market participants needed to have an idea of what was in reports they couldn’t see for themselves. Typing up or otherwise relaying coherent dispatches for wide dissemination in time for the opening bell, which rang at 10 a.m. at the New York Stock Exchange until 1985, was no easy task. Giving the press a 30-60 minute head start to deal with releases which mostly go live at 8:30 a.m. or later was a practical, necessary and reasonable accommodation.

Additionally, the business press at the time, unlike most of its media counterparts, tended to play its reporting relatively straight, concentrating on just the facts (imagine that). As I explained in a column written over a decade ago (minor edits have been made to the original), that started to change in the late 1970s. Until then:

… [W]e could count on their business reporters (who I will call the “Bizzies”) to accurately report what was really going on in the economy, even if the news wasn’t good or didn’t fit the liberal template.

That changed with the election of Ronald Reagan.

… A critical part of the Reaganites’ pre-inauguration tax-cut campaign was an emphatic belief that the economy was in deep trouble, and that it was getting worse. They were even whispering that we might be on the verge of the “C-word” (Crisis) to describe economic conditions.

… [T]he Newsies, with the help of some outgoing Carter Administration officials. … ridiculed the verge-of-crisis talk and called it irresponsible, even as the prime rate rose to 21.5%! Some Newsies even complained that such talk in and of itself could cause the economy to get worse (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?).

The Newsies, who had never really concerned themselves with what the Bizzies were saying and doing, expected backup from them on this important political issue. But to the Newsies’ horror, the Bizzies by and large agreed with the Reagan team! While the economy-saving Reagan tax cuts eventually passed for a number of reasons, the lack of sustained opposition from the business press was certainly a factor working in its favor.

The Newsies’ response to having been “betrayed” by their own Bizzies was to assign liberal reporters and columnists to the business beat. … [B]usiness journalism went downhill during rest of the 1980s because of the politicization that occurred. Newsies became politically-driven Bizzies. Bizzies who didn’t go along went elsewhere.

The changes were profound. By the summer of 1985, The Washington Post, with a straight face and the backing of their Bizzies, told us that the economy was in the middle of a “slump.”

Following 1983 and 1984, when the nation’s gross domestic product grew by 4.5% and 7.2%, respectively, growth in 1985 was 4.1%. We could use a “slump” like that right about now.

The Alphabeth soup news organizations need a heads up becasue they have to have time for Media Matters to tell them what it means. Then they need a few minutes to change a few words (they don’t want them to match word for word)
and then send it back out under their own name. They’re more or less bobbleheads for Barack.

Economists, both in and out of government, only guess and usually somewhat wrong, about the future. Check all the restatements and such. These pronouncements, taken seriously by the media, certainly move markets which the so-called “Wall Street” loves since that’s how they make their money. The media is a Wall Street patsy about this. The Dept of Agriculture guesses wrong, and myriad more, but I can’t remember them all and I am too lazy to look it up. Embargos are useless, as is the media.

It is true that the government can manipulate the reports to benefit the boss, President Barack Obama, in his reelection. The government employees might not all have jobs if a Mitt Romney becomes president and they know that. But since the media wants Obama as Sexy Prexy it goes along with the lies and ultimate restatements.

And, besides, early release to special people allowed those people and their closest 100 friends to take advantage of the early knowledge and position themselves to make a nice profit from the ignorance of the rest. Problem has arisen, however, that only the folks in the business who have survived 40 years of government help in the form of cutting out the competition remain, so there isn’t any profit to be made from it. It does, however, give the news – aka the propaganda arm of the party in the White House (either one, no difference) – time to work out the spin they want to put on that news and what they want left out. “Responsible journalism”; what a concept!

Fox News does not. Fox Business Channel does — for now (as does CNBC). My guess is that Fox didn’t have access until it created its business channel several years ago.

I say “for now” because DOL is “re-credentialing” all entities whose names I learned after this column was published (17 of them, which includes a few foreign-based entities), and probably several others who might want in.